I literally have done zero HPDEs or TTs done staring to race wheel to wheel and I really struggle with paying money to do HPDE. Would I even enjoy it? I feel like it would just be going around burning gas, tires and brakes for no reason. Chasing a lap time or the perfect lap just doesn't seem to have much allure anymore.

Is running HPDEs really that entertaining after doing W2W? Maybe I'm just a spoiled brat?

The Cali guys are doing SPM, which is cheap and fun. I don't do a lot of HPDE's but when we do, it's fun. It's a nice break from the pressure and hard work of racing. Chillax in pits, not worried about finding those last 10ths. Giving friends and customers rides. Driving other people's cars. At that point it's a social activity. Racing is a competition first and foremost. The guys who go into HPDE as a competition are missing obviously.

More often than not, it's shaking down a new race car, testing this or that. I never go to a DE solely to drive for driving sake. Here in Cali, we also have the Miata Challenge TT series which is also low stakes fun. A few steps up from goofing around an K1 karting but a step or two down from w2w. That also gives us w2w guys a chance to mentor the guys coming up from DE or autocross. I find that very rewarding in itself.

I equate it thus: The Z06 is fun on track but lack of safety equipment and cost of breaking stuff limits fun factor for me. The 140whp HPDE Miata with full HPDE safety gear (4pt bar/HNRS/6pt harness/fire bottle, FIA seat bolted to floor) and it's limited speed potential allow me to have a lot more fun than I do in the Z.

To me HPDE is sorta the same thing. By nature, it's less serious and more worry free and that makes it fun. Decompression from chasing national championships and organizing 40 member race teams for the 25.

My first love was aviation, and I went after it hard. Annapolis, aero engineering degrees, naval flight training, carriers, fighters, Top Gun, combat. Now I'm older and limited to prop jobs. That kind of aviation is expensive and boring. Total turn-off.

So I discovered playing with Miatas and HPDE's. I love learning new stuff. And I love the social part. I hope I never get jaded from it.

I enjoy chasing down faster cars with slower drivers and playing around with a few buddies who came up through the ranks with me. I know the competitiveness of racing is fun but being a winner in racing requires new tires every day, etc. that hot lapping for practice does not.

Giving friends and customers rides. At that point it's a social activity.

^This this this. I do that a lot. It is more fun for me to take others around the track than to go alone. I take customers and friends out as often as possible.

I also take my HPDE students out. Many times they do so much better when you show them what to do than when you've been telling them for three sessions without it really sinking in.

I'm not even close to the best driver out there. And I'm certainly not on par with the racers. But there are things I can do to benefit the newbies who help to keep the sport going by sharing the cost of the track rental for the organization. Some of them will be racers one day.

Not my first time around this particular block. I started in W2W karts in 2004 and "stepped down" to HPDE/TTs in 2007-2008 before starting W2W again in 2012. There is life after W2W, especially if you're feeling burned out on high-stress competition like I am.

My single favorite event from 2014 was shaking Thumper down at an open test day at Sonoma. No working tach, no working speedo, no lap timer of any kind, no way to concretely judge improvements or pace at all. Just driving around on a race track I love without giving a single thought to speed or track placement or race strategy or worrying about breaking the car or anything else that clogs your mind during a W2W race. It was a perfect reminder of the joys of simply driving just to drive. I want to get back to a place where I look forward to going to the track, and the atmosphere of a DE is sometimes just what the doctor ordered as a detox from high-stress W2W action.

Well, that's certainly true at high-speed tracks. I think at a smaller, twisty track, Eric, Chris, and I would have been all over the RX7.

Really the issue comes down to the way the rules are written. Heavy cars don't corner as well as light ones, and to correct for the lap time difference, they get a modifier on their class weightower ratio, to allow them more power. While this makes the lap time equal, it makes heavy cars achieve their lap time differently than small cars - in the straight vs in the corner. This also means that heavy cars benefit at tracks with a lot of straight, vise versa at tracks with a lot of corners.

My single favorite event from 2014 was shaking Thumper down at an open test day at Sonoma. No working tach, no working speedo, no lap timer of any kind, no way to concretely judge improvements or pace at all. Just driving around on a race track I love without giving a single thought to speed or track placement or race strategy or worrying about breaking the car or anything else that clogs your mind during a W2W race. It was a perfect reminder of the joys of simply driving just to drive. I want to get back to a place where I look forward to going to the track, and the atmosphere of a DE is sometimes just what the doctor ordered as a detox from high-stress W2W action.

Those test days are some of the most fun I have on track. You never know what one of the shops will bring out. Being on track will such a variety of cars is pretty cool. There is always a rabbit to chase and have some fun with.

Pit lane and the paddock are mellow and low key so it's easy to mingle and catch up with old friends.

This was originally posted Nov 13, 2013 just after 2013 nationals in our thread : "Team 949 Racing @ NASA Nationals Sept 5-8, 2013". I took it back down after some of the team still using the formula asked me to to ah, shut up . Since we have long since left NASA PT and I still have many friends and customers in PT, I thought it was time to share the info. Not really secret sauce now as most creative racers have since figured out how we did it.

Edited Jan 2, 2015:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dunning Kruger Affect

It's a good time when the PTE cars are being held up by the battle for 2nd place PTD.

The rules will likely change as a result of Sonny's annihilating the D lap records and our E car beating all the other D's.. but I'll let everyone know what we did and why. In short, over the last 10 years we have learned how to make more power with fewer mods. These configurations are the culmination of that team knowledge.

For D & E, we figured out the NB has an advantage on the NA because it's OEM fuel system has enough capacity to run E85 with only a reflash or ECU. Zero mods otherwise. This means a 5% bump without any points. The NA doesn't quite have enough injector/pump/pressure for D, but it is close for E.

The premise is that dyno classed cars always get at least a 1lb penalty in lbs/hp. We were always getting beat at the start by worse handling cars with better lbs/hp because they were points classed. So we started looking at what other pts mods we could delete to free up enough points to hit the power cap and still run the best tire at the time, 205/50/15 SM6 on 15x9's.

delete our 7pts aero
delete swaybars/end links 2pts

To get the cars to balance with stock 22/11mm say bars we ran 1000# front springs and either 400 or 450# rears, same basic alignment as our website page. Trickier to drive at the limit and a bit harder on the tires but fast. The 800/500 with 1.125"/14mm bar set up in our BGK is better all around but we had to compromise to fit the rules. If you try this, make sure you have brand new OEM end links. Old NB links like to come apart. Be patient when setting up as the optimum tune is a narrower window.

Adjusted lbs/hp allowed us 167whp but we only made 162whp
For the TT and PT records, Sonny added some weight and used the points for A6's. We also brought SM6's and made our last minute decision based on the weather.

There you have it. With the rules changes for 2014, the NB1 set up like this becomes the best NA/NB combination. Slightly less torque than NB2 but pretty much just as fast. At Miller in 2013, our best PTE car was capable of running almost 4s under the SM record. Combination of real shocks (and perfect balance), another 16whp and that fabulous 4.875g OS Giken mainly.

SM6s at +8 and R7s at +10 makes things a little more interesting now. SM6s and a 6-speed or R7s?

Unfortunately I think it's always tires first. It does appear that the SM7 and R7 are not the same tire as the SM6 and R6 were. The A7 also appears to be faster than the old BFG R1 and by all accounts, a tad faster then the R1-S. That last bit amazes me as the puny 205/50 R1-S I tested on 15x7's just before Runoffs were flabbergasting in their grip on a 2200# (comp weight) NB.

From memory, 5sp + 4.77s gives the same 3-4-5 ratios as 6sp + 3.9. No reason to spend points on a 6sp if you have a decent (flat) tune.

Benefit to the 6-speed isn't the ratios, it's the higher average power delivery from the tighter ratios in the gearbox. On a proper tweaked-out dyno class car it's not worth anything, but on a points NB1 it might be. I'd still mate it to 4.77s either way.